Memories Of A Human Being : Name, Hair Color, Eye Color And Skin Color

In the article You Have No Idea What Happened by Maria Konnikorva there is a quote near the end of the reading that really sums up human memory. Lila Davachi, a N.Y.U. neuroscientist who performed an experiment on emotional memories said that “the goal of memory isn’t to keep the details. It’s to be able to generalize from what you know so that you are more confident in acting on it.” This experiment was to test people’s memory after getting an electric shock to images. The results showed that people’s memory of the images tied with the shocks were enhanced as well as similar images from a test before without any shocks. Davachi was not just referring exclusively of the people that participated in the experiment, but to humankind as a whole.

From my point of view, one of the lessons that I have learnt from the various examples of false memory cases is that implanting false memories may lead to a tragic legacy that such accusations can leave behind. As example, from the Gary Ramona case, he was being accused for repeatedly raped his own daughter, Holly for over a lengthy period but in fact, it is actually Holly’s psychotherapist, Marche Isabella whom implanted

Research shows that the human mind is not like a tape recorder, we neither record events exactly as we see them, nor recall them like a tape that has been rewound. Instead, witness memory is like any other evidence at a crime scene; it must be preserved carefully, or it can be contaminated. A case I would like to mention is the Calvin Willis Case. One night in 1982, three young girls were sleeping alone in a Shreveport, Louisiana home when a man in cowboy boots came into the house and raped the oldest girl, who was Ten years old. When police started to investigate the rape, the three girls all remembered the attack differently. One police report said the Ten year old victim didn’t see her attacker’s face. Another report which wasn’t introduced at trial said she identified Calvin Willis, who lived in the neighbourhood. The girl’s mother testified at trial that neighbours had mentioned Willis’s name when discussing who might have committed the crime. The victim testified that she was shown photos and told to pick the man without a full beard. She testified that she didn’t pick anyone, police said she picked Willis. Willis was convicted by a jury and sentenced to life in prison. In 2003, DNA testing proved Willis’ innocence and he was released. He had served nearly Twenty Two years in prison for a crime he didn’t

Factors such as misinformation and eyewitness talk can easily affect the memory of eyewitnesses and therefore affect their testimony_. Evidence which is usually provided during eyewitness memory reports helps to determine the guilt or innocence of a perpetrator in a criminal proceeding_. With the help of many basic psychological and neuroscience studies, it has been indicated that because memory is a reconstructive process it is likely to be influenced and vulnerable to change and misinformation_. Due to memory being vulnerable, any minor memory misrepresentation can have severe consequences when used in the courtroom_. Memory errors when regarding the identification of a perpetrator of a specific crime has been focused on during research

A part in the brain called hippocampus is very important to memory. Hippocampus is the vital key to remembering and it is also vital to emotions. It also helps you make new memories so you aren’t just remembering the past. The cerebral cortex is also very important. It helps you do things without you thinking about them. Examples of what the cerebral cortex does is breathing, how to swallow, or to catch yourself before you

One of the most interesting aspects of the human brain is the ability to remember and to travel back in time within your memory. The documentary, How Does Your Memory Work?, looks into the complexity of memory over a lifetime, something most of us take for granted it says. We learn that memory develops early, but as time progresses, some parts of memory can disappear. We also find out that our memory shapes who we are, including our personalities. Included in this video are interviews of a young guy who was born prematurely with memory not fully developed and a young girl who was a victim of sexual assault with a traumatic memory of her attack.

Have you ever heard of a person being convicted because of a witness testimony of events that didn’t actually happen? In many cases, a person is wrongly convicted because an eyewitness does not correctly remember what happened. In some situations, this is because the witness lied to authorities, but in other situations it is because of a false or modified memory. Memories are created all the time, but they are not always accurate. We conclude our past from information that we store in our brains, but we also create memories from what we have expected, seen, heard, or imagined.

Memory is a cognitive function of the brain that is often taken for granted. Memory may have many purposes, but most importantly it is essentially a record of an entire life span. From this perspective memory is the most important aspect of consciousness. Unfortunately, through formal experimentation it has been shown that memory is fairly inaccurate, inconsistent, and often influenced by our own experiences as well as the bias of others. Memory is not only affected during an observed event, but there are instances where memory can be influenced after an event as well. There are also instances where memory can be affected retroactively due to personal experiences and biases. Incorrectly recalling the memories of one’s life is usually not

Repressed memories is yet another controversial psychology topic, one that may lead to different explanations based on the opinion of different experts. The reality is that there can be more than one explanation on a per case basis. As American Psychology Association suggests memories can be forgotten and remembered or it can be suggested and remembered as true, moreover the latter seems to be much more common than the actual retrieval of accurate forgotten memories. I have focused my research on two articles from Harvard University, one trying to understand and validate repressed memories through a word study on dissociative memory and the other trying to disprove it by researching and looking for cues of repressed memories on works of fiction and nonfiction.

Four hypotheses were given in this experiment. Results from each were consistent with its hypotheses. 1) The recovered memory group attained higher scores on the false recall and false recognition test than the control. These results are consistent with the only other experiment that measures memory distortion. This previous study dealt with memory distortion of victims of childhood sexual abuse (Clancy et al., 2000). People who are more prone to exhibit false recall and false recognition in the laboratory are more likely to do the same in real life. 2) Repressed memory and recovered memory participants exhibited more false recall and false recognition than the control group. 3) The recovered memory did score higher than any group in both false recall and false recognition.

The need for understanding the phenomenon of repressed memories is also very important from a legal standpoint. In recent years there has been numerous cases of people suing their parents or other authority figures for abuse that has been recalled many years after the abuse was said to have occurred. The rulings in these cases have often been controversial considering there is often not enough concrete or collaborative evidence to prove the accused to be guilty or innocent. The judge and jury are often forced to make a ruling that relies heavily on the testimonial of the accuser. This is very contentious considering there is not an accurate and reliable test to determine the validity of the accuser.

The challenges of memory recovery have not escaped judicial attention. Courts have increasingly found repressed memory testimony to be

(Parkin, 1996). In addition, hippocampus is part of the limbic system in the brain that is shape like a seahorse and is located within in the temporal lobes. The hippocampus is involved in memory forming, organizing, and storing (Bailey). Moreover, “The hippocampus acts as a memory indexer by sending memories out to the appropriate part of the cerebral hemisphere for long-term storage and retrieving them when necessary” (Bailey). Furthermore, the afferent and efferent of the hippocampus are packed together and goes the same way. According to an article from University of Texas Medical

Moreover, in the text, The Recovered Memory controversy- The New Perspective, by Gorman Graham, a hypothesis made by Graham, trauma is related with “self-preservation”. Meaning, that the term instinct. In 1920, it was believed that humans didn’t have instinct, only animals could. But five years late, it was found that humans have this characteristic too. The term is referred as “reptilian brain”. The reptilian brain warns organism of incoming events and information and help handle the body’s function necessary for survival. This means, it is possible that humans create repressed memories, to protect themselves of mental and possibly, physical harms. He also mentions that in modern psychology, the terms is highlight question. In his text, Graham (and other psychologists) questions the of appearance of the repress

Loftus and Palmer support the reconstructive memory hypothesis. They believe that information gathered at the time of an icident is